Lessons

Yesterday was hard.  I've been learning that even if your intentions are in the right place people will still take you the way they want to take you.  You can say everything in the right way and it can be completely wrong.  It's disheartening to know that you can try so hard to communicate and fail miserably.
That's how a felt all yesterday.  Now I can look back and see that there is no such thing as a correct way to say something.  That when we give advice it is only because we care, but that if someone doesn't take it the way you intended to give it, then the fault is on both parties.
After yesterday I have learned two things.  One, only voice your opinion when asked.  Otherwise it won't be valued or warranted, even if you preemptively ask for permission to critique.  And two, if your having a hard time fitting into a new circle of friends or colleagues, then perhaps you shouldn't try so hard to squeeze in, and allow them to come into your circle when they are ready.
Right now I feel saddened that I can't connect with my new community in a stronger way.  I also know that this is a phase, and that I need to be forbearing while my new community figures out what I'm all about.  Lastly, I care, and I will continue to care.  The circumstances of my life were only in my wildest dreams until a few months ago, and I'm not going to give up.  I will survive, and I will thrive.
I'm here!

Isolation, Written July 2011

I spent, well spend so much time isolating myself.  I realized today that I have always needed to be overly competitive because I needed to find out who I was as an individual.  The problem is that it evolved into me isolating myself from the rest of my life.  I love my work, and it has become my life, it has quite possibly consumed me.  in the next few months I am going to no longer isolate, and instead I am going to incorporate.  Instead of finding out who I am I now more interested in where I come from and how I am connected to it.  My family, my friends, my home.  My work might not be about who I am, but instead where I come from. It might be about how I'm connected to the world, and who connects to me?

Well it's been far too Long

Well there is so much going on in the Life of Magic these days.  I've been training really hard and working on some fun stuff that should come to a cross roads in October.  Tomorrow I leave for CO.  I don't know what to think about that yet.  My Friends in Copenhagen are doing well.  I wish I  could have gone to them this year, but it just wasn't in the cards.
The street season has been very different this year.  I haven't had as big of shows, and the work is very experimental.  In some ways it's the best year I've had, while in others I need restraint.  I have started working with a group of performers, we call ourselves the 5 of us.  They are amazing creatures, and perhaps that is accomplishment enough.

BIG GAP

Well,
it's been a while since I last Blogged.  I suppose I was busy trying to make sure I had something to blog about!  Right now I'm in Hamburg DE, and I'm one of the newest members of Pilobolus's Shadowland.  We are going to be touring for the next 7 months all over Germany and then some.  So far it's been great.  The work is incredibly challenging in ways I never it imagined it could be.  The company itself is a group of very special people.  We all have our strengths and weaknesses.  It should be exciting here we go.

Being in it

Today I realized I probably didn't get into a company I recently auditioned for.  Most of the time in the show biz world you just don't make it.  You practice falling and getting up again, but some times you actually land it.  I really felt like I landed this one, but I haven't heard anything from them.  The audition itself went so nicely, and everything felt right.  I felt right for the movement, and it inspired me to move.  It feels a bit like getting 4th place.  You are so close, you can taste it, but you still didn't make the podium.  I just have to get up and brush it off.  Or, maybe I'll send a letter.  Maybe I just need to pursue it a little longer.  I'll give it a week and then if I still don't here from them I may have too...

Isolation

 Of late I've realized that I have isolated myself from everything since I was very young.  It has been the core of my work and quite possibly my life.  I am now seeing that it was a great lesson in finding the edges of my existence, but that it is only the outer edges of that existence.  My life is my family and my work should mirror that connection.  My work should be about connection, and not isolation.  I want to know that I am evolving into my life as a dynamic part of a whole, and not the whole itself.  I am looking forward to being with those people again.  The art to my life... To guide myself away from home, so that one day I may find my way back again.
 

No time these days

Time is of the essence in the real world.  I will be writing less as the summer will eat up my time on the street of Manhattan and beyond.  It is a really nice time of year to be out doing your thing in the sun.  Reach out and jump into the rays as much as you can.  It's a really great reason to live.

Spring

A street performer comes out to the streets on a casual afternoon.  The smell of wet pavement is all around and only a few people seem to have found their way out into the last moments of an otherwise gloomy spring day.  Who would perform on such a day?  Only god knows, but the performer seems to take in the stage he calls home, and begins to flow through the motions of a performance he knows oh so well.  After a moment people begin to stop as they pass, after an hour only a trace of once was wet ground remain, and in it's place stand a New York city crowd fit for Lincoln Center.  The performance is done, and the performer takes a bow.  Coins fly, hats are tossed, and everybody walks home happy.  

Just a thought 

Here and back

Yesturday I returned from Los Angeles at 5 in the morning.  When I landed I headed for home and a few short hours of rest before I had rehearsal mid day.  I was in LA to finish the ADR sessions needed to complete the film I was in a few months back.  It turned out really nice, and I can't waite to see where it flies off to.  This weekend should be interesting, we are performing Don Quioxte with the company, and I think it should be a lot of fun.  At this point I'm really trying to reel my life together and transition myself fully into New York City.  Life is grand, just have to keep on pushing.

Think big and jump higher

The streets are starting to live again.  I went out over the last weekend and performed.  It was like magic.  I have to say there is so much beauty when you just shut all the negative garbage out and slip into a creative space.  I am really excited for the coming street season...  When I perform out there it feels alive, like people don't have any idea what it must feel like to do what I'm doing.  I have no idea how to not do it.  There is absolutely no security in what you do on the stage of the street, but in a lot of ways when your totally naked you realize that there is no such thing as security.  For so much of the time when you live in this place, you me, we, are bombarded with advertisements.  Fear, it's fear.  It's so clear when you just let it all go!  When you just say, Shit man, I don't need this stuff.  I don't need any of these things to be happy.  I don't need to perform any way other than the way I wish to.  I'm not a blue man or a principal dancer.  I'm not a Broadway performer, or a famous actor.  I am none of these things, but I am.  Yes, yes, yes I am.  

Rain on my day

For the most part I really have a positive outlook on things, but some days it just rains.  Today I worked through yet another injury that has appeared in a month full of fun feeling, muscle tearing bliss.  At first I didn't think I would be able to move at all, but after I took some Western medicine I found myself feeling up to the task.  Actually at that point I danced pretty dam well.  

Oh yeah, I worked on a film today.  I think it should look pretty good when it's said and done.  That's what I was dancing in, and that's why I actually took western medicine.  Normally I don't go near pain killers, but I certainly wasn't going to be able to work if I didn't.  The film is called Changement, and I play a quirky french kid that dances for a company in the states.  I'll put more details out when it's out.  Any ways the day was hard, and some what disappointing as far as training goes, but it was a good lesson, that we have bad days to make our good days better.  

On another note I really feel the urge to put my comedy down for a while and focus purely on my dramatic works.  I may take my new contact juggling piece to the streets.  Another idea that I have is to just through some tunes in my ears and dance with a hat out.  Real improve style.  We'll see.  

  

Hear the dance, see the music.

I was sitting in the train today and I realized something interesting.  All works of any note today and yesterday were created and set in a locked choreography.  Well tomorrow I don't see this happening any more.  Works of the dance can be fully structured and choreographed, yet not bound by set steps.  It's one thing to demand a certain amount of out of a technician, but quite another to take command of an other's movements.  This may seem avant-guarde, but what if dancers were selected on their technique, and shape, but were allowed to speak the language that they worked so hard to create.

A Poem

What is
Is always and must be
For if we are to evolve it must entale all in order to see
Our potential is great
And perhaps dark too 
Yet it needs a single light to remember what we always knew
We are because we belong


pd

Flying fast

The past few days have been going by really fast.  Since my last post I have street performed all over the city, landed another film, trained with my new company, and worked out the loose ends to a new piece.
The piece is actually the most interesting part of the past few days for me.  Over the past few years I've been playing with the idea of doing a contact juggling piece.  For those of you that don't know what that is, look it up it's worth seeing and far too hard to explain.  To give you an idea though its like rhythmic gymnastics.  The difference is that with rhythmic gymnastics the ball bounces and is bigger, which is easier to manipulate.  Contact juggling is relatively new territory for the circus arts and very few go beyond the phase of upright juggling.  What makes it special is the that you are juggling one ball.  Now how you juggle one ball may seem easy, but in all actuality it can take years of practice to do it at any level worth watching.
That's not really what I want to talk about though.  What makes it interesting, what makes any work interesting is the lessons that you learn from the work.  In this case I have really learned the essence of focusing on one thing at a time.  That is something that I have a lot of trouble with, and funny enough it was really rough going at first, because the work behind the curtain in this case, demanded that I focus on one thing at a time.  At first I was trying to make a few pieces, one being the contact piece and another that I have since put aside for later.  In short what I've learned is that it's important to learn many things at once, but having the ability to focus in on one thing at a time is key.  Fill your days with many lessons, but if you are to succeed at any of them you must think only of the task at hand, otherwise you are never really breaking through the surface layer of the work.  That's been my life over the past few days, perhaps it was helpful.
See you next time.
 

STRESS

Today I woke up to a feeling that most dancers greet with pleasure, Soreness.  Like most I love the feeling that I trained hard the day before.  It's a beautiful sign that what your doing is changing you, and hopefully making you better.  Today though it was different.  Today I was not about to put my body through a normal day's amount of stress.  For some odd reason, beyond me, the dance world loves to over train.  It's amazing how with all the information that's out there about athletics and recovery, the dance world doesn't believe in any of it.  I have to say that I was really no different until recently when I came back from Los Angeles.  I was just getting back and I told myself that I would ease my way back into a full training regime, but what I found was that most of my pears were injured, or stiff.  These were people that I hadn't seen for about a month and yet they seemed to be weaker than I!  What I soon realized was it wasn't the training, it was over training.  They were putting too much stress on the body.  Ballet asks us to move in very dynamic and unnatural ways.  It emphasises the extent of our human movement and is so specific within it's design that there is no room for any variation.  In Ballet there is a right and a wrong.  Well I think I'm evolving!  I think from now on I'm going to train with all the smarts of a modern athlete, and combine it with the grace of a classical dancer.  

getting within it.

Most of the time we think that artists have it so good.  And being someone who is lucky to call his art his job, I would have to agree with that concept.  That is until I have a day like I had today.  There is nothing like training your body six hours a day, six days a week.  It hurts so bad that you begin to tell yourself that you actually enjoy the pain.  In fact you get addicted to it... The same way drug addicts get addicted to haroin.  Yesterday I came down with a cold, and I was forced to take the day off from training.  Well I was supposed to take the day of from training.  Instead I still woke up at the crack of dawn and I still showed up and took company class.  The truth about art is that there is an element that has to be work.  There has to be a structure that you never falter from.  It's that structure that is so f#@!#$% hard to maintain, that allows you to go beyond your craft.  The consistency is what gives you fluency.  The hard part about dancing is the day in and day out work ethic you have to have.  The rest, the rest is easy...  Double tours, tour assemble...  It's easy, but you have to maintain your structure, otherwise there isn't clarity.  Days like today remind me how hard this life can be.  The next few days I'll be getting over this cold, but you can bet I'll still be training.  Something to think about.

Rain

Today was mmmmm,
I loved today.  I met a great new friend and had lunch with a old new friend.  This city has so much to offer.  I can't really say much right now because of the incredible high that I'm still feeling, but it was dreamy:)  I think the trick is to just be happy at all costs.  I spent all day creatively processing life with other people.  There is something in the works, something that I can't quite taste yet, but it's there ready for devouring.  There is a place called the Circus Warehouse in NYC.  It's magical.  The juices that are flowing from this place are amazing.  I recommend it to all.  Go to the circus ware house.

On another note, Tuesday I start with Ajkun Ballet Theatre.  I don't really know how I feel about it right now.  It's too much to take in at one time.  I am glad I have tomorrow to take class in a set environment.  It should clear my mind of not feeling on top of things come Tuesday.  There is so much I have to say, but it will just have to wait until tomorrow.  Another day, another chapter.  

I realize I haven't been clear

Wooop's,
you know what, I haven't really introduced myself.  In my first blog I told you that I wanted to share my world with you, but I didn't tell you what world I was in!  It certainly isn't the world of writing as you may have realized from my simple writing style.  No, I am a performer.  A simple vaudevillian/ Classical dancer/ Actor/ musician/ magician/ juggler/ clown.  Wow that's a mouth full, and yes, I know what your thinking.  How could someone have so many titles, or time?  Well first of all if it were up to me there wouldn't be a seperation between artistic expressions.  I'm sure that Picaso would have been an amazing dancer, infact I hear Da'vinci was.  Secondly I didn't really have a social life growing up.  What I did have was a lot of interests in the circus arts and physical activities.  I wasn't a good student in school either.  In fact I was an "F" student all the way around, except for P.E. and Art.  In thinking about it now I realize I never had a mathematical brain.  I have an artistic brain.  but our system only gives one subject to that side of thinking.  I mean honestly, where's the sense in that?  But not to get into that discussion right now...  I was just very interested in things that had to do with performing.  Sports have a stage too, and I loved it.  To put it simply, I started as a magician, and branched out into everything else.  I wanted to express myself as purely and fully as I could.  That meant every facet.  When I put a piece on, it consists of everything together. like a one man band of sorts.  As of this very moment I am in a professional ballet company, I street perform around the world, and I occasionally go to Hollywood and partake in the film industry.  Not a bad life really... But I will say this, I always skip the after parties!  

TODAY TODAY MY SEASON STARTED

Well today I started my 2011 street performing campagne.  I just eased into it before I really begin in the coming weeks.  It's really strange how you can love something so much and then after a few months get totally burnt out on it.  At the end of last fall I told myself I wouldn't street perform this year, because it wouldn't make me any money or further my career.  I was probably right, but I just don't care about that stuff anymore.  I love expressing myself in the street environment.  It's so brutally honest.  If you suck, you know it really quickly!  I know now that I will probably die a street performer, and you know what, I wouldn't want it any other way.  When you go out there and you actually pull a show off.  It's like Magic.
 
  

THINKING OF CIRCUS

In two days time I will be on the set of SIRK for round 4 of a shoot that will eventually end on the 24th of Feb.  I am the lead character, Worthy, and at this point in the film I have to shift backwards in time and become a year younger.  I had today off, and tomorrow will be the same, which will be entirely spent on character discovery and recovery from last weeks shoots.  There is something else that is on my mind too though.... I have to start thinking about Ballet again, because when I get off from this project I am off to NYC again, at which point I will start working with Ajkun Ballet Theater.  There really is no rest for the worthy!!!!!!!!!!

THE BEGINNING

Today is the first post of a blog that will exist to share my experiences within the dance world, film industry, and day to day life as a performing aritst.  I am going to be as honnest about my experiences as I can be.  This is meant to help others realize that we are all creatures of creativity, and that no matter what it is you do, you belong to your dreams, as I do mine.